Mr. George S. Hudson 159 



it compels the thief to keep the cacao he has 

 stolen in his possession twenty-four to thirty- 

 six hours, and this frequently proves his 

 undoing. The usual procedure of a small 

 proprietor having cacao for sale to a merchant 

 is to " sweat " it one night (which entails no 

 rise in temperature, and is merely equivalent 

 to a draining process), expose it to one day's 

 sun when it is bagged, and next day, perhaps, 

 slightly sprinkled with water to make it weigh 

 a little more, it is then sold to the merchant. 

 In other cases the drying is continued until it 

 is more or less "dry" in the accepted term 

 (generally less), 'and the produce then sold to 

 the merchant, who exports it in this condition 

 as cured cacao. It is then, usually, very un- 

 attractive, of a dirty grey colour, insufficiently 

 dried, more or less mildewed, and containing 

 much of the placenta from the pod. Small 

 wonder that it sells at a low price, one is 

 only surprised that it does not fetch an even 

 lower figure. In some cacao-buying stores an 

 attempt is made to produce fermentation on 

 the partially dried bought cacao, by throwing 

 it as purchased into large packing cases, and 

 leaving it there for a night or two to take 

 its chance of fermentation. Its chance is in- 

 finitely small ; such fermenting germs as the 

 cacao carried away from its brief sojourn in 

 the "sweating-box" are killed by the sunning, 

 and as one seldom sees the " Cacao Fly " 

 (described by Dr. Nicholls) in well-scavenged 



